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The situation endured by most of the nearly 2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Uganda continues to worsen as rebel attacks have caused fresh human displacement. In early November a spate of attacks on humanitarian workers as well as renewed ambushes on civilians hindered relief operations to a displaced population heavily reliant on assistance.

With the deepening political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire raising fears of a return to all-out conflict, the country’s estimated 500,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) face an increasingly precarious future. While South Africa’s mediation efforts have failed to narrow the gap between the government of President Laurent Gbagbo and the rebel Forces Nouvelles, and the transition period after the collapsed October 2005 elections giving particular cause for concern, many UN agencies and NGOs in the country have been finalising contingency plans for the “worst case scenario” entailing massive displacement and refugee flows into neighbouring countries.

With the deepening political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire raising fears of a return to all-out conflict, the country’s estimated 500,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) face an increasingly precarious future. While South Africa’s mediation efforts have failed to narrow the gap between the government of President Laurent Gbagbo and the rebel Forces Nouvelles, and the transition period after the collapsed October 2005 elections giving particular cause for concern, many UN agencies and NGOs in the country have been finalising contingency plans for the “worst case scenario” entailing massive displacement and refugee flows into neighbouring countries.

An estimated six million of Sudan’s more than 30 million citizens have been forced from their homes as a direct or indirect result of fighting between government troops and allied militias on the one hand and various insurgent groups on the other during the last few decades.

Forced displacement is one of the many ways in which President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov exercises authoritarian rule and control in Turkmenistan. Turkmen law contains a number of provisions which explicitly allow forced relocation to be used as punishment for certain crimes committed by civilians, however, in practice these laws are used as legal justification for the displacement of political opponents and ethnic minorities.

In response to cross-border incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a rebel group operating from neighbouring Tajikistan, the Uzbek government in 2000 and 2001 forcibly displaced several thousand villagers from the mountainous border region in southern Uzbekistan. The villagers were relocated to resettlement villages approximately 250 kilometres away in an open desert area.

An estimated 250,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) – mainly ethnic Serbs and Roma who fled within and out of Kosovo when Yugoslav forces withdrew in 1999 – are still unable to go back to their pre-war homes in the now UN-administered province. The overwhelming majority of IDPs live in Serbia, but smaller numbers have also found refuge in Montenegro and parts of Kosovo

The ceasefire agreed in July 2003 between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – the main rebel group fighting for independence on the southern island of Mindanao – has been holding relatively well in the past two years and the absence of any major clashes has allowed for the return of the vast majority of the estimated 400,000 people displaced in 2003.

An estimated 250,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) – mainly ethnic Serbs and Roma who fled within and out of Kosovo when Yugoslav forces withdrew in 1999 – are still unable to go back to their pre-war homes in the now UN-administered province. The overwhelming majority of IDPs live in Serbia, but smaller numbers have also found refuge in Montenegro and parts of Kosovo.

The tsunami of December 2004 forced a million Sri Lankans from their homes, adding a new displacement crisis to that caused by the island's long-running civil war. As of mid-2005, some 800,000 people remained displaced, 450,000 from the natural disaster and 350,000 from the human conflict.

With the October 2005 elections in Liberia looming, the official IDP return process has been proceeding at full speed. In August, the UN reported that more than 203,000 IDPs had been assisted to return – leaving a total of about 111,000 living in camps and spontaneous settlements.

Since the early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of Burundians have fled their homes to escape fighting between the government and Hutu rebel groups seeking to put an end to the political dominance of the Tutsi minority.

Prospects for an end to the massive displacement crisis and two decades of armed conflict between the government and rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda look dim after the breakdown of peace talks in February 2005. The collapse of the talks brought an end to a ceasefire and a resumption of rebel attacks on internally displaced people (IDPs), involving killings, maiming, rapes and looting.

Nearly six months after King Gyanendra assumed direct power and declared a state of emergency in February 2005, Nepal is faced with both a deep crisis of governance and a renewed spate of fighting and violence all across the country.

Almost five years after the UN stopped counting internally displaced people (IDPs) in Rwanda, there are still 180,000 relocated families living under plastic sheeting, in damaged shelters or temporarily occupying other people's homes.

In 1998 and 1999 the Rwandan government and the UN recognised around 650,000 people in makeshift camps as internally displaced (IDPs) in the north-western prefectures of Ruhengeri and Gisenyi. These IDPs have been uprooted when an insurgency in the two provinces was put down by the Tutsi-dominated government in 1997-1998. In December 2000, the UN ceased to consider them as such, arguing that “governmental and international efforts to stabilise the situation through durable solutions have advanced beyond the threshold of what still could be called internal displacement”.

Decades of conflict and human rights abuses have caused the displacement of more than a million people within Iraq. The majority of internally displaced people (IDPs) were forcibly displaced under the previous regime, which targeted communities perceived to be in political opposition as well as using forcible displacement as one of its tactics to strengthen control of resource-rich areas. Prior to the United Statesled invasion of Iraq in March 2003 that led to the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it is estimated that some 800,000 people were displaced in the north and centre, mainly Kurds, but also Assyrians and Turkmen

The internal displacement crisis in Burma affects mainly ethnic minority groups, and is particularly acute along the border with Thailand. The military regime’s objective of increasing control over minority areas through a policy of forced assimilation and repression of autonomy movements has resulted in decades of conflict that has devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

In 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), known as the“Zapatistas”, launched an uprising in the south-eastern state of Chiapas with the stated goal of improving land and social rights for the marginalised indigenous people of Mexico. The government responded by sending in troops and creating paramilitary cells from among the local population as part of a low-intensity war strategy.

Up to 50,000 people were internally displaced due to security operations by the Pakistani military in South Waziristan during 2004 and an undetermined number remain internally displaced today. Since March 2004, some 70,000 troops have been based in the region to remove foreign fighters suspected of “terrorist” activities and seeking shelter among the tribal population.

Tens of thousands of Arab villagers became displaced within Israel on the destruction of their communities during the 1948 war between the new State of Israel and its Arab neighbours. Among them, the Bedouin suffered several further waves of displacement after the war, and continue to live in particular hardship. The displaced – including their descendents – now represent about one quarter of the over one million Arab citizens of Israel. Many of them still hope to return to their original homes.

Displacement has been an endemic feature of the 40-year-long conflict in Colombia, and over three million Colombians have been internally displaced since 1985. The Colombian internal displacement crisis is the world’s worst after Sudan, disproportionately affecting Afro-Colombians and indigenous people, who are among the country’s poorest.

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The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) is the leading source of information and analysis on internal displacement worldwide. Since 1998, our role has been recognised and endorsed by United Nations General Assembly resolutions.

For the millions of people displaced within their own country, IDMC plays a unique role as a global monitor and analyst to inform and influence policy and action by governments, UN agencies, donors, international organisations and NGOs.

IDMC is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an independent, non-governmental humanitarian organisation.